In this thread, I’ll simply just post cars I’ve designed. Some will be entirely fictional, some will be inspired by real car designs to different degrees.
Here’s a yank tank. The 1968 Liberty Motors Éclat. A 6 meter long luxury barge with mushy suspension, horrid fuel economy and handling like a cruise ship. A car that your Supreme Leader would be chauffeured around in. A car for a CEO. The pinnacle of luxury in the late 60s. This one has a 247hp 5.7L V8.
Here’s the Éclat S-Line. A souped up Éclat with hand crafted interior, a phonograph and even worse fuel economy! Featuring a 403hp 7.8L V8. The Éclat S-line does 7.4 MPG combined.
Time to revive this thread with a 2020 Saab 9-5. Well, my vision of what a 2020 Saab would be since I love Saabs. Featuring Saab-like styling, the famous Saab H-engine and a proprietary 400hp twin turbo V6.
It comes in many flavors, from a sedan to a wagon or convertible but here, I’ll post pictures of the sedan version and one convertible version. Next post, there may or may not be a Saab premium/luxury crossover because every automaker is making crossovers nowadays, so it would be fair to assume Saab would make one as well.
Engine options:
B205 2.0L turbo Inline 4, 206hp, 266Nm. An evolution of the B204, tuned for a balance between performance and fuel efficiency.
B235 2.3L turbo Inline 4, 301hp, 363Nm. An evolution of the famous 2.3L I4 used in the Saab 9-3 Viggen. It now makes a comeback with even more power.
B350 3.5L twin turbo V6, 405hp, 454Nm. A recent addition to the Saab engine lineup. Used in high performance vehicles only.
Note: There’s also diesel, hybrid and electric options but I won’t write any details about them since I don’t know what reasonable specs would be for these engines.
Saab 9-5 2.0T. The base trim with a 6 speed manual and 2L I4.
Saab 9-5 Viggen. The famous sleeper with the mighty B235 2.3L engine and a 6 speed manual. 0-100 km/h in just 5.9 seconds. This features the iconic blue color found on the original Viggen car.
Saab 9-5 Gripen. Named after the famous Swedish fighter jet, this is the top of the line high performance version of the 9-5, featuring AWD, a 6 speed DCT and a 405hp V6 and superb cornering capabilities.
Why use the ancient H-engine in 2020 if you’re not a Chinese company? Also it looks a bit like some late 90s styling transplanted on a more modern body - trim lines, black matte plastic, orange indicators, small grille and no trace of LED or laser tech.
Why change something that’s already good? The Bentley L-series V8 has been in production since 1959 for example. The H engine has been around since 1981 (production ended in 2009 in the real world) so it’s not that old really. My iteration is very modern with direct injection and whatnot.
And maybe the pics don’t do the lights justice but there’s LED running lights inside the light fixtures so I saw no need for excessive LED designs. Also was trying to go for as much of a Saab look as possible without over-designing anything.
Emissions and profitability, that’s why. L-series was quite unique in its enormous production time, and it was an engine from a very specific, small segment. You don’t see many such long running engines in more mundane cars, especially nowadays. 39 years is old.
Also “not over-designing” results in a dated or cheap looking design for modern cars. That’s just the way it is. Saab look is not about using 90s details. You can take the 99 and the 9-5 NG and still find family resemblance, even though they’re decades apart. I’m not saying the idea or style of your design is bad, I’m just saying that you’ve made choices in a design meant to be new that make it look totally not new just by themselves. If this was a vision of a cancelled 2005 9-5 it would be perfectly fine, but it just doesn’t cut it as a 2020 thing.
The H-engine also still had its roots in the Triumph engine used in the 99 (though it was extensively reworked by Saab and was much better than the Triumph unit ever was). So it’s really an old construction by now, even if the later units really shows that Saab could do miracles with what they had to work with so no bad words said about the H engine…
The engine is basically only using the bore and stroke of the H engine but everything else, from materials used to emission ratings, is up to modern standard.
I was looking a lot of the early and mid 2000s Saabs for design inspiration so that influenced it. Though I wouldn’t say that not over-designing automatically leads to an outdated or cheap design.
The latest Volvo S90 doesn’t have a bazillion LEDs, 100MW lasers, jet engines, a fusion reactor or a warp drive on it. It’s a neat, clean and simple contemporary design. Same goes for the XC90 and most of Volvo’s current lineup. So that’s what I went for; something clean but modern and Saab-like.
Also, the indicators inside the headlight unit on my design is supposed to be yellow LED, and there’s a LED circle around the headlight bulb things (you could pick different light colors on it in Automation at least lol), and the rear light fixtures have LED-style of bulbs inside them, below the glass, which doesn’t really show up well on the pictures.
Whatever, I’ve made my point and that’s enough for me. I would never guess that this is in any way inspired by the new Volvos. As for the engine, from that description it seems to be an evolution of the H-engine, not that engine itself. This changes quite a bit.
The body may be from 2009, which is fine, but the fixtures are more appropriate for something made a whole decade earlier. And it needs a completely new engine lineup as well.
I really liked the idea of simple design, in an era when almost every car manufacturer seems to overstyle their vehicles, except Volvo, in my opinion. I’d personally used more modern fixtures, e.g. for the grille and the head and taillights. I’d like to see the diesel specs - since hybrid or elecrtic are not featured -, which you can emulate by raising the compression ratio, lower the red line, tune properly the turbocharger and so on.
I tried doing the same, but at the end I surrendered and tried to separate the main grille from the vents using some small chromed trim pieces. Really like your design, especially from the back
Me and modern looking rear and front light arrangements don’t mix well. I’m terrible at making them look modern enough but here we go with another try.
2020 Nordic Motorcar Company T5 - The crossover designed for Nordic conditions.
T5 42 GreenDrive - the economic and green option, with an efficient 2L engine and an 8 speed automatic gearbox. Comes fully equipped with a premium interior, infotainment and a mixed fuel economy of 6.1L / 100km.
T5 42S AWD - the option for the crossover connoisseur. Comes with AWD, adjustable air suspension, even fancier infotainment and a 309hp 2.4L engine.
T5 Pathfinder - the offroad option. Same comfort levels retained but adapted more for rough terrain. Has locking differentials, tires more suited for rough terrain, AWD and offroad tuned suspension. It’s a fairly competent offroader for what it is (tested in Beam).
T5 63S - the high performance luxury option. Luxury interior combined with a 6 cylinder engine. No, it’s not a V6, it’s in fact a transversely mounted, highly compact 3L inline 6 with 422 horsepower. Exterior wise, you won’t be able to tell that it has a beefy engine, but this 2.1 ton brick does 0-100km/h in 5.59 seconds.
While the design is not my thing (what a surprise - though the front is ok), I’m actually impressed by the efficiency of the base variant. What’s its power and do the other ones get such good numbers too?
This is the 1995 Volksauto Taube, a cheap and ugly mid 90s commuter capsule. It’s very affordable and very fuel efficient. If you can get over the poor quality interior and entertainment system and bare bones design, the Taube is a low cost commuter car that’s quite reliable (the 1.1i scores 75.9 in reliability). Because corners were cut, this car was a popular target for car thieves or people looking for something to steal and have a joyride in. Both the door locks and ignition lock were quite easy to unlock.
Taube 1.1i - the base version. No frills interior, an efficient 51hp 1.1L inline 4 (mixed fuel economy of 5.8L / 100km), low running costs and good reliability. This trim level is more no frills then low cost airlines. No power door locks (Volksauto was generous enough to give you a keyhole on each door), no traction aids, not even ABS. And you get good ol’ drum brakes on all wheels.
Taube 1.5i - the mid tier trim. Now we’re getting into luxury territory. This trim level comes standard with ABS, electronic door locks and ever so slightly better suspension. It also gets a plastic strip on the doors to emphasize that you’re better then those in the 1.1i. As the name implies, this specimen has a 1.5L inline 4 making 78hp and it does a combined fuel consumption of 6.1L / 100km.
The 1.5i is also available as a four door version called the 1.5se. Another special version was the 1.5e, designed for export to developing nations. It’s basically the same two door hatchback like the 1.5i but the engine has been heavily detuned and had its catalytic converter removed so it can run on any form of petrol-like substance that you put into it.
Taube 2.0se - budget hatchback heaven. Now we’re getting serious here. This trim gets a standard quality interior and a beefy 2L inline 4 producing exactly 100hp. All this while retaining a good fuel economy of 5.9L / 100km. As an added bonus, the front lower side vents are real vents now.
Taube 2.0se Turbo - a proposed answer to the age old question: what happens when you try to make a hot hatch out of a cheap rust bucket of a car? Volksauto tried and produced this thing. A turbocharged 2L inline 4 produces a wheel shredding 157hp which gives this car a 0-100km/h time of 7.26 seconds and a top speed of 232 km/h. You get all this, plus a fuel economy of 6.5L / 100km, for just over 10 grand (US dollars, in 1995, assuming Automation dollars come from 2012).
This is the 2020 Artemis Ultima, a sports coupe / super car type of car. It’s been designed from the ground up with handling and performance in mind and comes in three different trim levels, each with increasing amounts of performance.
Artemis Ultima Classic (or Ultima V8) is a classic muscle car variant. RWD, V8 and manual gearbox. It is powered by a 430hp 5L V8 and does 0-100 km/h in just 4.5 seconds. It features a top speed of 313 km/h, phat tires, a nice premium interior for two people and a sports tuned suspension. It’s surprisingly easy to drive (tested in Beam) and quite tame, but turn off the traction aids and you’ll be doing sick donuts at your local gas station.
Artemis Ultima RSV8 (= RoadSport V8) is getting into super car-ish type of territory. It’s AWD and uses a turbocharged variant of the 5L V8, making 576hp. This is fed to the wheels through a 7 speed DCT. Performance gets a boost with a 0-100km/h time of 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 324 km/h. The car is extremely easy to drive and handling is responsive and it doesn’t understeer like you’d expect from an AWD car. There’s a tiny tiny hint of oversteer in there to keep the driving experience fun.
Artemis Ultima RRV10 (= RoadRacing V10) is essentially a street legal race car. It features a 920hp twin turbo 7.5L V10, magnesium alloy rims, carbon fiber details, AWD and a 7 speed sequential gearbox. This top tier trim does 0-100 in just 2.6 seconds, the quarter mile in 10,27 seconds and tops out at 364km/h. Despite all this power, it’s surprisingly easy to drive and wheelspin is minimal.
